How to Exfoliate Lips the Right Way (Because, Yes, There Are Wrong Ways)

We're nearing the end (we hope) of what seemed like an eternal winter. Chances are that with the weather going back and forth between frigid and randomly hot, we're experiencing patches of dryness, especially on our lips. The best way to smooth it out and prevent future chapped lips is to exfoliate.

Now, we know when you google "how to exfoliate lips," you'll get a random list of suggestions. We're here to tell you to not use a toothbrush to rub against your lips and instead use the products and DIY recipes we know actually work. Scroll down to see what you can do to keep dry, cracked lips in check.

You can also make your own lip scrub if you want to go the DIY route. You only need a few ingredients, and it takes less than 10 minutes to make and apply.

Homemade Sugar Lip Scrub

The first DIY lip scrub we love is from StyleCraze. The video is pretty straight-forward.

Ingredients:2 tsp. of sugar1 tsp. of coconut oilLip balm

Directions:

Pour the sugar into a bowl followed by the lip balm that's been taken out of its packaging. Then finish by adding the coconut oil. Mix everything together well and scrub your lips for about four to five minutes before washing off.

Pour the sugar into a bowl, followed by the oil of your choice. (Tiffy uses jojoba oil for added moisture.) Next, put in the honey for hydration. For flavor, add an extract (she used lemon). Mix everything together so that the jojoba oil, honey, and lemon are evenly distributed across the sugar. (Tiffy ended up adding another teaspoon of sugar because the lemon made the consistency more watery than she wanted, so feel free to adjust based on how much extract you end up putting.) Scrub your lips in a circular motion for two to three minutes—you can actually lick it off since it is completely edible.

Now that you have a couple of lip scrub options, we hope that the fight against cracked lips has gotten a whole lot easier.